Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Herb guide to Hyssop along with all the Hyssop containing recipes presented on this site, with 9 recipes in total.

e This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Hyssop as a major herb flavouring.

Hyssop refers to a genus of about 12 species of herbaceous and semi-woody plants in the Lamiaceae (mint) family. The most common and well known is the herb Hyssop (Hyssopus officinais) which is native to the Mediterranean, but widely cultivated today (also see Bissap Hibiscus sabdariffa). The plant produces small white flowers in summer and early autumn (these are edible). There is also a pink-blossomed variant.



Hyssop leaves are dark-green in colour, are small and lance-shaped in form and have a pungent and slightly bitter minty flavour and can be added to soups, salads or meats, although should be used sparingly as the flavour is very strong. The leaves can also be preserved by drying and if stored in an air-tight container will last for over a year. The essential oil of hyssop leaves is typically quite low (0.3 to 0.9%) and contains a variety of bicyclic mono­terpene derivatives (L-pino­camphene, isopino­camphone, pino­carvone). In common with many other members of the Lamiaceae, hyssop also contains a large quantity of tannin compounds — phenols with a diterpenoid skeleton (carnosol, carnosolic acid), depsides of coffeic acid (= 3,4-dihydroxy­cinnamic acid) and several triterpenoid acids (ursolic and oleanolic acid) [these same compounds are also found in sage and rosemary].



The flavour of hyssop leaves has been described as similar to rosemary or lavender and during the Middle Ages it was popular as a flavouring for soups and stuffings, but now its main use is in the distillation of liqueurs, such as Chartreuse. Indeed, the only major cuisine that makes use of hyssop is that of Gascony, France, where it's invariably added to the local bouquet garnis. The herb has a pungent, slightly minty taste so should be used with caution. I have also heard that hyssop is used (sparingly) as a flavouring for fruit pies in the USA, with 1/4 tsp hyssop being scattered over the fruit pie before the top crust is added. One good use of hyssop is in the preparation of sugar syrups. A sprig of hyssop gives a very pleasant flavour and these syrups can be used in the cooking of fruit or as the base for cocktails.



Today, hyssop is relatively difficult to come by (in the UK at least), but the young leaves are useful in cooking — chopped and scattered on salads, sprinkled on meat or oily fish dishes or used to flavour soups, stews and fruit dishes. It's said to help aid digestion of fatty or rich food and hyssop tea is said to be good for chesty coughs. The flowers are possibly even more useful that the leaves. They are both colourful and edible and make excellent garnishes for salads and desserts.



The English name hyssop is derived from the Greek plant name, hyssopos [ὕσσωπος] which may be a loan word from a Semitic language (compare Old Hebrew esob [אזוב] (marjoram) and Arabic az-zufa [الزوفا] (hyssop)).



If you are interested in trying hyssop as a culinary herb, then the best way is to buy seeds and to grow it in your own garden (like many herbs it grows readily and is easy to germinate).